Witches Brew
by theaverys
Summary: Halloween in the Avery household just got a whole lot scarier! See what happens when Jackson realizes there's a whole other side of April that he hasn't discovered yet. Will Jackson make the sacrifice? This is a light-hearted and not too scary Japril Halloween fic!


**Hey everyone! Wow, has it been a long time since I updated or posted anything. I am** ** _so_** **sorry about that. I still totally ship Japril and plan on writing more soon. Look for another special Christmas project from me. Let me know what you think about this one-shot because I've never really done anything like it before! Thanks for reading.**

 **Witches Brew**

Jackson paused on the front steps of his home, looking at the life he and April created for themselves from the outside. Their house just had a warm look about it, which may have been magnified by the bright full moon up in the sky. It was a huge, cream colored colonial house with a large yard in a subdivision. The houses were all old like theirs, but most seemed completely renovated. They had character. The yards were decorated and ready for Fall and Halloween. He could smell something cooking inside and it made his mouth water. That thought was quickly interrupted by the sound of his daughter inside laughing. Her giggle could make a monster grow a heart. He was only gone for a few hours, and yet it felt like a few days.

He snapped out of his trance and went inside. "Daddy!" the little girl yelled, taking off toward Jackson. He met her halfway and scooped her up into his arms. She gave him a sloppy kiss on his nose and then he peppered them all over her face.

April ran out of the back of the house frantically. "Oh! I thought I lost her!" she laughed awkwardly, getting a look from Jackson. April was usually on her but these days she was moving faster than either of them could keep up with most days.

She caught his expression and felt immediately offended. "Relax, Jackson".

Instead of arguing back he shrugged it off and snuck a quick kiss from her before giving their daughter more love.

April came over and sat down next to them where they had cuddled on the couch. Lyla had already drifted off to sleep in Jackson's arms. They sat there for a while until he carried her to the nursery and tucked her in. When he got back to the kitchen, April had dinner ready to serve.

They had all but finished when she finally gained the nerve to ask him again. "So?" she said, and he already knew what question her "so" was pertaining to.

"Absolutely not, April". Jackson groaned and immediately waved off his overly-bubbly wife.

He got up and April followed her husband as he marched toward their bedroom near the other end of their home. She had such a good day off, until now. The house had a chill to it to it that only meant October in Seattle. It smelled like a pumpkin cupcake candle she had burning in the living room and the smell of their merlot beef stew dinner still filled the air. The house was clean and she spent the day adding some last minute Halloween decorations since she and Lyla were home while Jackson had to work. They were actually having a good day, with no terrible-two melt downs or anything to sour their morning, minus briefly losing her minutes ago.

She entered their room to see Jackson pulling off his sweater to change into his pajamas for the night. Although she was momentarily distracted by the sight like usual, she regained her attention. Every time she saw Lyla's small footprint on his chest she had to catch her breath again. It was a tattoo he surprised her with and she didn't initially like, but it grew on her quickly.

"Why not? We can dress up like a family this year. Lyla will love it." argued April. They had the same argument last year when Lyla was still an infant and she let Jackson win that one.

He shook her off again. "Because Babe. I am not going to be some dork who dresses up in matching costume with his family. That's not me. I'm not that guy."

April tried to let it roll off, but it still kind of stung. She knew it was never exactly his thing, but she thought maybe because it was for their family she could get him to change his mind. Last year she had begged and begged him to dress up with her and Lyla as Popeye so they could be Olive Oyl and Swee'Pea. He shut her down and went as an OBGYN by wearing salmon scrubs instead of blue. It was the worst costume ever, and she couldn't handle that again.

When she was younger she always envisioned having a family of her own and what they would do on Halloween. She wanted to dress up in fun, matching costumes and take her kids trick-or-treating just like her parents did with her and her sisters.

At this point though she decided maybe she needed a new game plan. Her grumpy husband didn't seem to be budging and she didn't have too much longer to convince him.

"Is there anything I can do to change your mind?" April whispered into his ear and wrapped her arms up around his shoulders. She was going to go there. She thought about it and to be honest she probably would have gone there anyway.

It took Jackson a second longer than it should have to catch on to the fact that his wife was willing to trade sex for a Halloween costume. "Please?" she whispered up into his ear and tickled his neck and she let her lips linger.

He placed sweet and gentle kisses on her pink lips. "If you think you can make me dress up, you're crazy."

She gave up. For now. Now she just wanted him and didn't care about the Halloween costume. "I'll show you crazy." she purred as she pushed him down on their bed and crawled on top of him.

After two sessions of love making, one sweet and the other fairly wild, she rolled off her husband. She fell onto her side and her husband followed by wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in close. Her hair smelled sweet and he buried his nose in it. She usually felt cold and he loved to snuggle her until she warmed up, but after those romps she was hot to his touch. He laughed to himself when he thought about how wild she could be. No one but him had any idea. With that final thought, he drifted off to sleep.

 _Everything was a tad blurry and reality didn't quite seem real. Something was off, but he didn't know what. After a long day at the hospital, he was finally home to see his family for the night before doing the same thing all over again._

 _The house he shared with his wife looked cold. Sure, it was cold outside, but from the outside it only looked cold on the inside. There were no lights on in there that he could see, just the gas light from the stove used to heat some type of kettle. He had no idea what she was cooking, but it didn't smell great. It smelled nothing like the normal fall scent that filled his senses when he entered their home each night._

 _Lyla must have already been sleeping because the house was silent. There were no giggles, no singing and no tv. In actuality it must have been the animals outside, but it sounded like bats hissing somewhere in the background. There was nothing he found more eerie than the sound of hissing bats in the background._

 _First he unconsciously sucked in and held his breath and then twisted open the knob of their front door. He was instantly taken aback by the mess that was their home. Nothing was in its place and it wasn't anywhere close to what he would consider homey feeling. There were weirdly carved pumpkins and lit candles scattered throughout, and a lone black cat in the back of the hallway._

 _The figure he at first thought was his wife standing at the stove turned around to greet him and he nearly jumped out of his skin. She wasn't his wife, she couldn't have been. The woman had red hair like April, but it wasn't as shiny and it wasn't as kept. It had a frizzy allure to it, similar to Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus. Her nose looked bigger, actually very similar to the way it originally looked when they were interns at Mercy West before coming over to Seattle Grace. Only this nose was worse and that was saying something. Her complexion was anything but clear, scattered with blotches and the porcelain color he had always adored had turned to green._

 _"Sweetheart, you're home!" The woman screeched as she tried to scurry over to him. He jumped, not even recognizing the woman coming his way. The only aspect of her he could recognize was the engagement ring he gave her that cold day in Lake Tahoe. That, she was wearing. Was this April? What happened?_

 _"Where's Lyla?" Jackson quickly questioned her, backing away from her reach as quietly as possible. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. Where he leaned back to grip their counter threw him off, since the granite surface was now old and rotting wood. He looked around the house and while it was mostly dark, he could see the entire place seemed to have aged 300 years and was entirely unkept during that period._

 _"I put a spell on you, and now you're mine!" Fake April crackled, as she laughed hysterically. She busted into song and dance:_

 _You can't stop the things I do._

 _I ain't lyyyyin'._

 _It's been 300 years_

 _Right down to the day._

 _Now the witch is back_

 _And there's hell to pay_

 _He took off down the hallway toward their bedroom and his mind was racing. Were they 300 years in the past? Is it actually April who's the witch in front of him? Where was Lyla? As he's going down the hall, he peaked behind him._

 _April and two other red headed witchy-looking women were chasing after him, still singing their same crazy freaky song. At this point he didn't have any idea what was going on. They were moving together in sync and mumbling to each other incoherently._

 _"Jackson! You can't hide in there forever!" One of the witches threatened and they collectively pounded on the door, twisting the doorknob back and forth anxiously hoping to break in._

 _He hollered back, "What is this! What's happening? Where's my wife, where's my daughter?!"_

 _All three women laughed hysterically from the other side of the door. They talked at each other and over each other and never ended up giving him an answer. And then suddenly a pounding and a thud sounded in the kitchen and he heard them race back down the hallway. Maybe he was in the clear, for now._

 _At least he thought he was, but then he was called, "Dinner! Come and get your dinner!" and another crackled laugh which seemed to echo down the hallow, empty house._

 _He ignored their calling and scrambled and rummaged his bedroom for any sign of normalcy. Nothing resembled anything of his he once knew. The home he left this morning when he went to work was nothing but a memory of a happy home and family he once knew. Now he was trapped with nothing but himself and a bunch of crazy witches. When he opened April's nightstand drawer which she normally kept medical journals in to read before she fell asleep, were now replace with handwritten journals listening nearly foreign sounding recipes with bizarre ingredients like a human heart and dragon's breath._

 _With every bit of courage he had, he decided to go back into the kitchen and further examine what was really going on. Probably because he tried to open the door as quietly as possible, it creaked more loudly than ever. The noise in the kitchen fell silent with his exit and he eased down the hallway as silently as he could._

 _The other two were gone, or at least out of sight and just the April-looking one was waiting. Her back was turned toward him and she was using all of her weight to stir what she was cooking up in her kettle._

 _"April, can we talk?" Jackson asked her, hoping the charade would end or they could un-freaky Friday._

 _No response._

 _"April?" he whispered again, inching closer to the woman._

 _Still nothing. A million thoughts raced through his mind and now he was panicking. His breath was caught in his throat and a bone chilling breeze rushed through the house. She turned around and moved just enough out of the way so he could see into her kettle._

 _"Boiled bunny? Maybe I am crazy!" She shrieked and cackled. "HAHAHAHAHA!" and then turned around to continue stirring. He screamed instantly, remembering calling her crazy for wanting him to dress up earlier in the night and took off running as fast as he possibly could, tripping over nearly every foreign object in the process. The brash mix of reality and his subconscious was too much for him to bare. The sound of her laughter was still running through his head when he tripped over what looked to be a thick and wiry 200 year old spider web and his head instantly smacked into the hardwood flooring._

April shook him and shook him, "Jackson! Baby, wake up!" She said over and over, feeling his hot and clammy skin as she did. He was murmuring to himself just like he used to have when they were residents. "Hey, hey, hey!"

Suddenly he stopped and snapped out of it, he was able to come to. "Are you okay? You were having a nightmare." April soothed, wrapping her arms around him tightly. She rubbed small circles on his back just like she used to when they were just good friends.

"A nightmare?" he asked her, studying her face as if it was the first time he saw it. He took his hand and ran it through her soft, red hair. She was just wearing his favorite Harvard t-shirt, the one she slept in most nights.

"Yes, Jackson. It was just a nightmare. You kept calling my name and moving your arms like you were trying to get away." she told him. "What happened? Do you remember?"

He paused as best as he could, trying to put everything together. It was the weirdest dream he had ever had. Nothing full of gore like in the past, but twisted. So very, extremely twisted and hellish.

"You were, you were a…" he tried, still lower on oxygen than he had been in a long time. "I was…" he looked around again, noticing the familiarity of their bedroom. Everything was normal again. She wasn't crazy. She was his beautiful and loving wife.

She continued gazing at him and trying to understand what he was going through, just waiting for him to speak. Nothing was happening.

"I want to dress up with you for Halloween. I want to. Really. I was wrong. I'll be Fred, and you can be my Wilma. We'll have our little Pebbles." He begged, realizing that the dream was some sort of twisted alternate universe or what-if scenario. Or maybe he just shouldn't have called his wife crazy.

She grinned her fullest smile. "You mean it?"

Jackson nodded because he did. He wanted to be there for his wife. He wanted to keep her just the way she was. "I do."

April soon confessed. "Good, because I already bought your costume."

 **Hopefully you got the references to Hocus Pocus! If you haven't seen it yet, go watch! Happy Halloween!**


End file.
